Viking to publish 'haunting' debut by Luiza Sauma

Viking is publishing Flesh and Bone and Water, a "haunting, brilliantly evocative" debut novel by Goldsmiths graduate Luiza Sauma.

Mary Mount at Viking, part of Penguin Random House, acquired world rights from Emma Paterson at Rogers Coleridge & White. Nan Graham and John Glynn at Scribner in the US snapped up North American rights.

The "mesmerising and beautifully realised" debut is reminiscent of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's first novel, Purple Hibiscus (Fourth Estate), according to Viking. It will publish it in hardback in April 2017.

The book is set in both Brazil and England, following André Cabral who is 17 when his mother is killed in a road accident by Ipanema Beach. When his father returns to work as a busy plastic surgeon, André spends his days on the beach with his listless teenage friends and his evenings in the family apartment with the daughter of the beautiful family maid, Luana. In London two decades later, the summer of that year returns to haunt André in the form of a letter from Brazil.

Sauma was born in Rio de Janeiro and raised in London. After studying English at the University of Leeds, she worked at the Independent on Sunday for several years. She has an MA in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths College, University of London, where she was awarded the Pat Kavanagh Award in 2014, and she has also been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.